I'm not very familiar with pawn shops either, but in here it's a borrow contract with a physical warranty. The pawn shops are "non-banking financial institutions" (exact translation) and they have rules and regulations. Anyway, using fiat cash as a warranty seems even less legit than all the other approaches we thought about ) )

Looks interesting but I'm curious, how does this not come under money laundering laws in many countries?

Say I want to transfer $100,000 to Russia - wouldn't this go against both countries laws?

Legally, I can't see it being different to taking a bundle of fiat notes and flying over to Russia with them.

So, you are American, right? I say this because you mention "I send from here to Russia" but never say where "here" is, which is very... american

Don't take it personally, I make this joke every chance I get, and I get a lot of chances around here. But jokes aside, you are correct that it can be tagged as money laundering, because that's the 'catch all' that governments use to justify the control measures in place. Imagine that you live in the States and have a 2nd degree cousin in Russia, with which you have a very close relationship. Now, you have a friend in Russia, completely unrelated to your cousin who is having some issues paying for something or another. You mention this to your cousin, ask him to give the guy some cash and promisse to pay him a fancy dinner next time you're together.

Money laundering? No money moved across borders, and for all we know, this is the exact same thing that happens with our service, unless fiat money is in fact moved across borders. Now the real catch is bitcoins and the fact we get fiat money for them. If we where able to operate properly balanced agent nodes, where only bitcoins where ever moved and never converted to cash then it would be no different from the case presented, but even then governments could call it money laundering and shut it down. Only if we can make this legal and taxable will the governments leave it be, because it is in their interest and, to be legal, we would need to get rid of the pseudo anonymous nature of bitcoins and collect all the same data about clients that WU and the like do... not my perfect scenario.

Money laundering? No money moved across borders, and for all we know, this is the exact same thing that happens with our service, unless fiat money is in fact moved across borders. Now the real catch is bitcoins and the fact we get fiat money for them. If we where able to operate properly balanced agent nodes, where only bitcoins where ever moved and never converted to cash then it would be no different from the case presented...

I'm not sure that's true. Bitcoin would be the currency and that has moved.

If this post was useful, interesting or entertaining, then you've misunderstood. 1N6rmaDiPf8ke3mx8217NykAMDZXkX713x

Wonder how Linden Labs goes about the Linden Dollars... I mean, it's in game, there's a central body, but in the end, is it a token as in some kind of good or is it money services? Do they have to comply with anything special?

They don't buy Linden Dollars from anyone, they only sell it; when people sell their L$ they are selling it to other people, not back to Linden Lab (notice the use of singular, it's only one lab).

(I dont always get new reply notifications, pls send a pm when you think it has happened)

Wanna gimme some BTC/BCH for any or no reason? 1FmvtS66LFh6ycrXDwKRQTexGJw4UWiqDX

The more you believe in Bitcoin, and the more you show you do to other people, the faster the real value will soar!

To throw .02BTC in this sounds dangerously familiar to Hawala networks which are becoming illegal in many countries after 9/11. The only difference is you are pre-negotiating the settlement of debt with Bitcoins.

Yes, very similar to hawala, although hawala probably serves the function better currently because of the pre-established trust. Existing without paper and/or transaction records for nearly 2000 years, hawala is nearly impossible to prove. Bitcoin solves the clearing function of hawala but not the settlement-into-local-currencies function. Therefore, any bitcoin exchanger/point-of-transfer in a country that is not on the FATF/OECD blacklist will have to comply with AML and KYC guidleines.

Ok, you really think that sending money from the US to Iran is the same as mcd selling burgers in both US and Iran? Well, I wish you the best of luck with that

But you are not sending money from US to Iran.

You are sending money from US to US, from Iran to Iran, and from btc address to btc address (A btc address has no geographical location of course).

Note that no fiat currency ever needs to leave either the US or Iran for this to work.

Important thread. This is how correspondent banking works, with the money center bank in the middle with offsetting correspondents in local jurisdictions. Knowing all the local bitcoin exchanges would allow anyone (almost anywhere) to receive and then sell bitcoin; however, the majority of exchangers are now registering and becoming AML compliant in their countries of origin, which entails identity verification of exchange clientele. This is still an evolving legal area and certain jurisdictions are evolving faster than others. In fact, some bitcoin exchangers are actively promoting regulation, thereby seeking to legitimize themselves (i.e., Intersango). I cover this in my post http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com/2011/11/air-guitars-and-bitcoin-regulation.html